Tiffany is 28 years younger than Umaima. Fourteen years ago, Umaima was 5 times as old as Tiffany. How old is Umaima now?
Answer: We can use the given information to write down two equations that describe the ages of Umaima and Tiffany. Let Umaima's current age be $u$ and Tiffany's current age be $t$ The information in the first sentence can be expressed in the following equation: $u = t + 28$ Fourteen years ago, Umaima was $u - 14$ years old, and Tiffany was $t - 14$ years old. The information in the second sentence can be expressed in the following equation: $u - 14 = 5(t - 14)$ Now we have two independent equations, and we can solve for our two unknowns. Because we are looking for $u$ , it might be easiest to solve our first equation for $t$ and substitute it into our second equation. Solving our first equation for $t$ , we get: $t = u - 28$ . Substituting this into our second equation, we get the equation: $u - 14 = 5($ $(u - 28)$ $ -$ $ 14)$ which combines the information about $u$ from both of our original equations. Simplifying the right side of this equation, we get: $u - 14 = 5u - 210$ Solving for $u$ , we get: $4 u = 196$ $u = 49$.